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Do you make these TWO common mistakes in your salon business? By salonhowto.com – Call Us Now On 618 9443 9327

Do you make these TWO common mistakes in your salon business? By salonhowto.com – Call Us Now On 618 9443 9327

I haven’t had anything to be grumpy about for a few days. So I was delighted to be given a reason to be grumpy today, with an email that had me shaking my head in wonder.

About 16% of new Inner Circle members resign from the program in the first 90 days, return their Toolkit and claim their money-back guarantee, never to be allowed into the program again. They leave for one of only TWO reasons. Here they are:

Reason #1:

Inaccurate Thinking

Just yesterday, a Member of only two months standing emailed to notify us she was leaving the program and returning her Toolkit. When I read the email, my eyes glazed over. I’d heard this nonsense many times before. In part, here is what she said:

“I am sorry to report that my accountant says I’m crazy and I shouldn’t have spent the money at this time for my small country salon with its limited population.”

The bolding and underlining is mine. Now, in general I have no problem with accountants. They have a (small) place in society. I actually know a few of them and in the main they’re very nice people. If a little on the socially-challenged side. (Joke: what do accountants use for contraceptives? Their personality.) My own accountant even speaks passable English, only occasionally lapsing into accounting-ese.

BUT… if accountants were any good at entrepreneurship, marketing, public relations, taking calculated business risks, advertising…well, they wouldn’t be accountants.

But that was far from the worst example of muddle-headed reasoning this (now former) IC member displayed. The second (and worst) example of Inaccurate Thinking is:

Believing that what YOU think about your marketing actually matters a damn.

Here’s what she wrote:

“I have not yet used any of the pamphlets or templates and I never will. I personally could not use them, I don’t like the way they look…“

(There is still, remarkably, a Flat Earth Society, made up of dedicated if misguided individuals who, despite somewhat compelling evidence to the contrary – going back oh, 500 years – that indicates the earth does not resemble a bread-board.)

This ‘I don’t like the way they look’ mentality would be almost laughable if it weren’t such a common misconception among business owners of all kinds, across all industries, small town or large city. So I’ll lay it out for you, loud and clear:

What YOU think about your marketing and advertising doesn’t matter a damn. Neither does it matter a toss what your staff think, what your boyfriend thinks, what your family and friends think. The ONLY people whose opinions are even worth considering are those of your customers and prospects.

And they vote with their wallets!

The fact that this ex-member refused to even TEST the effectiveness of direct response marketing the WSM way is a sure indication that she shouldn’t even BE in business. She should have a job.

Business is about taking the time to minutely analyze what’s worked for others, it’s about taking calculated risks, measuring impact and response, tracking results against some form of ‘control’ (benchmarking) mechanism, it’s about taking the emotion (‘I don’t like the way they look…) out of it, ruling ONLY with your head, not through a filter of personal prejudice.

But there’s another – even more pathetic – reason why many in that 16% of ‘opt-out’s decide to give up.

Reason #2:

Simply failing to use the tools, systems and guidance that’s staring you in the face.

Recently I wrote the pathetic story of a Member who emailed a long ‘woe-is-me’ begging letter, asking me to pull her out of her self-induced quagmire of failure.

Astoundingly, she freely admitted that

“…I have been a member of your (Inner Circle) program for around 2 years. The tool kit has sat on the shelf collecting dust, and I have forgotten about it….”

I gave her the most severe tongue-lashing I could be bothered mustering up at short notice, and fully expected her use that as excuse to simply give up and cower in the corner. Thankfully, she took it the way it was meant – as a swift kick in the butt – and finally took action.

Marnie Kallmeyer – it was 18 months before she finally began using her Toolkit

Our own new Inner Circle marketing coach Marnie Kallmeyer is a case in point. Marnie happily admits that she got her Toolkit and immediately put it aside – for 18 months! – because she was too busy wallowing in self-pity and failure, crippled by a business falling apart at the seams, to actually use the tools, templates and strategies that had already been proven to work by several thousand other salons before her.

Finally, on the brink of bankruptcy, she dusted the kit off and took action. Two years later, with a super-successful salon, blessed with the benefit of hindsight and grateful she didn’t simply give up, she’s now coaching our Australian members and helping them pull themselves up by the boostraps.

Footnote: for the (small) number of salon owners who resign from the program and feel compelled to write to me with their detailed reasons why it won’t/doesn’t/can’t work for them, how it doesn’t apply in their town/region/demographic, how they couldn’t possibly use ‘our’ kind of marketing because their clients are far too sophisticated/poor/affluent yada yada yada….

Don’t bother.

We’ve already heard it all before. Just write and say you’re leaving the program. We’ll understand, nod knowingly to each other, and move on to those members who know how to swallow their ego, roll up their sleeves, and get their hands dirty.